I tried using rc2 on XP to convert some files and had some issues.
I tried to convert a .mov file with 640x360 resolution and the resulting video came out 360x360 even when I filled in the resolution fields, I tried converting to mp4 and wmv formats, the same thing happened with both.
I tried setting scale to 0.5 and the resulting video is 320x320, although the Media info says it is 320x180 it is clearly square and if I use the snapshot function the resulting image is 320x320. If I open this same file in Quicktime it says the video is 180x180. Spooky!
VideoLAN does play the original video clip nicely and reports its resolution correctly.
I tried to convert a .mts AVCHD file to a mp4 file with 640x360 resolution and the resulting file was audio with no video.
The same audio-only problem occurred when I tried to convert .mts files in videolan 0.9.9.
Today was the first time I tried videoLAN so perhaps I am doing something wrong. I do like the 1.0rc2 UI better than 0.9.9. I've used several video converter programs recently and videoLAN is the most complicated.